Wednesday, February 13, 2008

In-Progress At Daytona: "RaceDay," The Gatorade Duels and "Victory Lane"

Thursday marks the beginning of the serious racing for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this season. There are many stories in-progress surrounding the Gatorade Duel races airing this afternoon at 2PM Eastern Time on SPEED.

Prior to the actual racing, SPEED has a one hour edition of RaceDay at 1PM. With all of the engine issues and driver/team combinations involved in these two races, Wendy Venturini should be very busy down in the Garage Area.

RaceDay will have the full cast of characters on-hand led by John Roberts. The NASCAR on Fox team will call the Gatorade Duels, and then Roberts and crew return to host a one hour edition of Victory Lane scheduled for 5:30PM.

With all the things that can go wrong in these races from rain to wrecks to group engine failures, it should be interesting.

This page will serve to host your comments about the afternoon of NASCAR programming on SPEED. Please feel free to post before, during, or after the programs. To add your comment just click on the COMMENTS button below and folllow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page.

Thanks again for taking the time to stop by and share your opinion at The Daly Planet.

I have one request for the guys in the production truck if they are reading this. If there is a battle for the final transfer spot in the final lap please keep the cameras focused on that battle all the way to the line.

This new Duel format has been in place for the last 3 years. In 2006 TNT did a fantastic job of keeping the cameras focused on the transfer spot battle on the entire last lap and all the way through the cars crossing the finish line.

In 2005 and 2007 though when Fox/Speed covered the Duels they kept the cameras focused on the transfer spot battle for 15/16 of the final lap but at the line used a very wide shot and completely lost sight of the cars battling for the transfer spot. Those most important cars got completely lost in the middle of a large cluster of cars racing in a huge pack. Fox did a great job of following the dramatic K. Wallace/K. Earnhardt battle in '05 and the Said/Bliss and Marlin/M. Wallace/Nemechek battles in '07 but left the viewers at home clueless as to who nipped who at the stripe by turning the cameras away from them at the finish.

This is a unique exception to normal races because these are qualifying races. The most important battle on the track on the final lap - the one for the final transfer spot - is most likely going to be in the middle of the pack somewhere. Fox needs to find that battle and keep the cameras isolated on them all the way through the finish line.

What the hell was the point of the Rutledge - Air Force segment? We're 30 minutes from the start of the most stressful races of the year. Instead of interviewing the bubble guys like Said, Allmendinger, Elliott, Schrader, Marlin, etc. to get a feel for the tension in the garage Speed is sending their clown (not a driver, not a crew chief, not an owner... their on-air clown) to fly a fighter plane???

I have all the respect in the world for the men and women of the U.S. military but I just don't see the point of this segment.

Rutledge needs to go. There's just no point to this guy being on our TV screens.

I'm sure he's a nice guy an all. My problem is with his 'role' not him personally. I don't like seeing a clown running around on TV every day adding nothing to the broadcasts but a bunch of running around and saying "I know nothing about what you guys are talking about but look at me ride on my scooter, weeee!".

My requests for today's camera work are different than normal given today's unique circumstances. Since this is a QUALIFYING race I want to SEE the battle for the final transfer spot LIVE. I don't care how many other cars I miss finishing, I want to see the most important battle - the one for the final transfer spot - all the way to the finish line (like TNT did when they covered these races in '06).

In 2005 and 2007 Fox/Speed missed a combined total of 3 photo-finishes for the final transfer spot by using a very wide shot at the finish. Normally I love the wide shot at the line but not today. The only thing that really matters today is the battle for the final transfer spot.

Have fun watching, I know I will. These are probably my two favorite races of the year.

I'm going to go out an a limb and say Jimmy Spencer's predictions of who will race their way in will be wrong. He picked 3 drivers from race 1 and 1 driver from race 2... D'OH! LOL.

I would have liked to hear more of the Speed guys' predictions on Raceday but since we didn't I'll offer up mine. Race 1 - #2 and #83. Race 2 - #49 and #50 (yes, Stanton Barrett, just call it a hunch... I'll look like a genious if I'm right and no one will remember if I'm wrong so I have nothing to lose, LOL)

Krista has a major presence on the duels today. Which is great, I like Krista.

Great coverage so far. Lots of driver interviews from Wendy and Hermie.

Like the Aerosmith song that got played 20 million times last year, I can tell I'm going to get tired of SPEED's new "Be There" theme song and I've only heard it yesterday and today.

However, I have to give them props for not bowing to the "back to basics" pressure where Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace and all those folks were saying NASCAR needed to stick to country music for racetrack performers and TV themes(it's a rock song). There's room for all types of music in NASCAR...at least there should be.

I know DW was excited about being out of the booth and right down on the track, but that constant highpitched screaming for the first two laps was too much. Gave me a headache. Glad Mike Joy finally calmed him down in a polite way: "Darrell, recess is over. "

I'm using the free Trackpass preview for the first time and it's amazing what we are missing on TV. There is a ridiculously crazy battle for the transfer spot every lap and we're not seeing it on the TV broadcast.

Alright Speed, it's time to step up here. The cameras MUST stay focused on that battle for the final transfer spot on these final 2 or 3 laps. Every go-or-go homer pitted other than Kenny Wallace and his teammate Joe Nemechek. This is going to be BIG.

Ahhhh...for those of paying attention, last year I first to predict that a TOYOTA would win one of the first ten races in this season of Cup racing...

And Hamlin's win in the second Dual 150s shows that Toyota certainly has moved up on their learning curve.

I predict (once again) that Toyota will win a points race in Cup -- only I'm adjusting my pick to be one of the first eight races.

Maybe even the 50th running of the 500 (though I think that in reality the race winner might be someone who has never won before--getting their first Cup win--or Mark Martin (but I'm secretly hoping Dale Jarrett--a nice way to go out--or Michael Waltrip wins--a nice way to put his "tainted" wins behind--win)

Interesting observation during Victory Lane - Speed's schedule for the rest of the week mentioned that the Nationwide race will air on ESPN2. It's nice to see that these networks seem to be cooperating more this year. Let's hope this cooperation means we get ALL practice sessions back on LIVE TV during the ESPN portion of the Cup schedule.

Please guys, when you competing networks work together the fans are the big winners. When you don't the fans are the biggest losers, like we were last year.

Looking ahead to truck qualifying tonight and Nationwide qualifying tomorrow I'll be very interested to see how the new qualifying rules will affect the TV coverage.

With the go-or-go homers all qualifying together at the end of the session, it should be much easier for the announcers and graphics departments to follow the drama of the go-or-go home situation. Let's hope that each network (Speed tonight and ESPN2 tomorrow) front-loads the commercial breaks so we can see the go-or-go homers qualify with no commercial interruption.

They did a great job. I loved how they "abandoned" Jr, and showed the guys who had to race well to get into the race. Good job focusing on Kenny Wallace. Since it didn't matter about Jr, they showed what was important. I liked the pairing of Jeff Hammond and Krista. They do work well together. This is how a race needs to be produced. Good Job Speed

JD. One of the first things I noticed today was the live / replay split screens...I immediately thought of comments made on this page last week.

That is pretty cool...it is also a good reminder to all of us fans that as long as we are respectful and courteous in our observations and criticisms, we have a good chance of seeing immediate results.

We certainly want to do our part to maintain the credibility of this site and the comments on this site as those of knowledgeable and caring race fans.

So many other blog sites are irrelevent because of the ridiculous comments and posters that are allowed to be on the site.

They might have missed the fly OVER but I did see a quick show of 4 jets during the anthem.

I have noticed all tv often misses the fly bys which is much more exciting than a glimpse of the jets...but I was told a couple of years ago sometime the timing is off of the singer and where the jets are...so we get what we get.

I am sure somebody who knows more about this can correct me but I did see the glimpse of the jets. But if you sneezed and closed your eyes, you might have missed it! :)

The split screen was GREAT but there were moments some of the cars looked like gnats...I watch on a 25 or 31 inch tv....Not everbody has the tv's the size of a truckside.

And MANY "HD" tv's I see for 800. are SMALL and skimpy...in actual 'real estate' of tv viewing...but I am still THRILLED of the improvements as opposed to ELIMINATING live racing.

Wonder how ESPN will compare...hello they YAK over the green flag racing, show draft tracker, pre recorded video...show INTERVIEWS OVER the green flag racing.

And a couple times as SPEED went to break there was a wreck and they stayed around.

So COMPARED to ESPN, I give SPEED A B plus!!

They would've gotten an A if they give us a few more minutes of the sound of SPEED...If I wouldve thought sooner I wouldv'e turned on the radio to enjoy the races (My room mate has TV thru stereo for music he sees on tv and for my NASACAR racing)

Today, I felt happy to take off work just to watch the races. The split screen was brilliant and a wonderful surprise. All the Speed/Fox guys and Krista were on their game today. This type of tv coverage is what we have all been asking for. Even when someone said on here that the background noise was too loud, the people in the production truck must have been reading this blog. Mike Joy said someone said they were too loud, he made a comment that it was the fans that got louder when JR took the lead. At least they are reading and wanting to take the opinions here to make the coverage better for us. Thank you Speed for making today a joy to watch and listen to. And Thank you JD for all your hard work.

The thing that I didn't care for in the four way split screen views was that every time I saw the clouds, in the upper right corner, I thought they had "The Big One" and all you could see was tire and engine smoke while the announcers were blathering on. Overall much better than last year.